Australia

Investa Commercial Property Fund (ICPF) has signed the first green loan from an Australian borrower, as sustainability-linked lending continues to gain global traction.

BAML brings in Australia ECM chief – Credit Suisse names Indonesia IB head – Goldman appoints TMT co-lead – Eastspring hires new CEO – BOC lends to Sri Lanka – FTSE Russell tracks Chinese green bonds

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has appointed Mark Warburton as its new head of Australia equity capital markets, according to an internal memo seen by GlobalCapital Asia.

Fearful of missing out and, in the absence of competing credit supply, investors piled into six covered bonds on Tuesday with a combined value of more than €6bn.Royal Bank of Canada’s deal epitomised the state of investor frenzy as it was able to issue the largest deal of the year with a negative new issue premium.

ANZ became the first non-UK bank to issue a Sonia-linked covered bond on Friday. The competitive and sizeable funding could well spur follow-on issuance from another non-UK bank early next week.

Westpac issued the first dollar covered bond of the year this week, while its New Zealand subsidiary hit the euro market following the demand unearthed by an earlier deal from ANZ New Zealand.

Westpac has issued the first dollar covered bond of the year, and its first in that currency in more than two years. The borrower took advantage of a quiet market to issue a sizeable $2bn five year deal that provided a considerable cost saving to senior unsecured — sending a strong signal to other issuers.

Wayne Green, head of loan syndicate and sales for Asia Pacific at BNP Paribas, has relocated to Sydney for another position, according to sources close to the situation.

In this round-up, China International Capital Corporation UK (CICC UK) became Stock Connect’s first depository receipt conversion institution, S&P and FTSE Russell added China A-shares to their indices, and October capital outflows from China jumped while outflows from other emerging markets stayed flat.

Australian coal producer Yancoal has raised HK$1.61bn ($206m) from its Hong Kong IPO after pricing it at the bottom of guidance.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association on Tuesday said the derivatives industry seemed to have broadly agreed on a method of calculating replacement rates, known as fallback rates, for interbank offered rates (Ibors), in case those rates stop being calculated.

National Australia Bank (NAB) was looking for execution certainty when heading to the dollar market to sell a pair of senior unsecured and covered bonds on Monday. But with credit conditions improving on Tuesday, Westpac shaved a few basis points off the cost of funding compared with its peer by opting for euros in covered and senior formats.